The importance of SA’s cities was somewhat lost in the medium-term budget
The importance of cities is growing globally, and most South Africans live in urban areas, but municipal budgets have been cut
The finance minister started his maiden medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS) with a quote from Charles Dickens’s, A Tale of Two Cities, selected, he said, to illustrate that the country is at a metaphorical crossroads, facing either an ascent to heaven or a descent to hell. He stressed that as an observer and analyst of municipal finances, there was little to take away that spoke specifically to the local government or the inter-governmental fiscal framework, the arrangement that exists for the transfer of funds from national to provincial and local government. The importance of cities is increasingly being recognised globally, and SA is no exception. The majority of the population now lives in urban areas, and urbanisation is increasing. Nearly half of the country’s population lives in the metros, the sub-set of large cities that are members of the South African Cities Network (SACN): Johannesburg, Cape Town, eThekwini, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni, Nelson Mandela Bay, Mangaung, Buff...
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